Do you think that most people have premarital sex? And do many feel guilty about it?

Oldsters might feel guilty about it, but not so much the people who experienced the sexual revolution and those that followed.

I think it’s funny that devout religious people think God is all powerful and wise, yet he biologically created us to have sex in our early teens. But wants us to have sex after we’re married. Seems like God can’t make up his mind.

This is not a statistically significant answer, but everyone I know did. I don’t know how many (if any) felt guilty about it.

“It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.”
—Voltaire

I certainly hope that most people have premarital sex. It’s downright irresponsible to enter into what is supposed to be a permanent sexual relationship without even knowing if you are sexually compatible with one another. This is particularly true if the relationship is expected to be monogamous. Asking for sexual fidelity before someone is capable of understanding what such a promise would mean is disrespectful. Fortunately, it looks like most people do. Nor is this anything new. Up to 30% of Puritan brides may have been pregnant on their wedding day.

It’s harder to find good numbers when it comes to sexual guilt, but I suspect that whether or not one feels guilty about having premarital sex depends on the sort of community in which one was raised. It would be nice if nobody felt guilty about what is ultimately the right thing to do, but the moral guardians of the world are usually more effective at making people feel bad than they are at actually stopping the behaviors they find objectionable.

Definitely most,if not all of my generation (I’m in my mid 30’s) do.

Guilty? No way. I wouldn’t even think of being with someone I’m not sexually compatible with. Let alone marry them…

IMO. Sex should come before marriage, every time…

I think the guilt for girls comes in when they realize they’ve been used for that one thing, and the guy doesn’t really have any interest in them other than that. It’s a pretty miserable feeling that doesn’t have anything to do with community.

What changed things was the availability of effective contraception. There are no longer any side effects to feel guilty about.

It’s been normal in my circles all my adult life and not associated with guilt. I’m in my early 50s.

It depends on the community. In the USA, in not-overly-Christian communities, I think most do, and without much/any guilt, as pre-marital sex is normalized and even encouraged in many cases. However there’s plenty of irrational programming for toxic shame around all sorts of things including sex, and still particularly for women. But in general in mainstream (especially urban) US culture, avoiding pre-marital sex is much more likely to be considered weird and abnormal, except in certain communities or families.

I don’t think many men have any guilt over any sex, as long as it is sex with a consenting adult.

^For the most part, I agree. We probably have have more guilt about being virgins. It was something that we had to get out of the way ASAP…

I really think more and more people would have and are already having pre-marital sex and more of them would feel less guilty.

This question made me think of Michael Moore’s latest docu “Where To Invade Next.”

In France they teach teens in a classroom the right way to engage in a sexual act with another. To be aware of the other person’s feelings and needs. To work on making the act pleasant and pleasurable for both of them.

^^ That’s a steep learning curve, especially for wild young male bucks!

@Dutchess_III Is it really all that steep, or do we just have cultural norms that let men off the hook?

I think that it’s biologically that steep. However, most of the young men I encountered were able to stop, to hold themselves back, because that is our cultural norm (and that norm is getting stronger in recent weeks.) Even the ones who took it much further than I allowed or wanted, were able to stop themselves short of rape. I was one of the lucky ones.

@Dutchess_III What are you on about? As far as I can tell, @mazingerz88 was talking about sexual pleasure, not sexual restraint. But it looks like you are talking about something else entirely. In any case, teaching men not to rape is not a steep learning curve.

You’re the one who changed the subject @SavoirFaire. I just answered your question.

@Dutchess_III You said: “That’s a steep learning curve,” and I said “is it?” How is asking a question—and that question in particular—changing the subject?

No, you said, Is it really all that steep, or do we just have cultural norms that let men off the hook?.
I replied that I think it is biological, not societal. It’s societal expectations that back most of them off.

@Dutchess_III Explain how that it is changing the subject when I was just asking for clarification. Seriously, explain.

Hint: one cannot change the subject by asking for clarification.

You asked my opinion as to whether I thought “wild young bucks” having a steep learning curve in the areas that @mazingerz88 mentioned in his France comment were due to society. I said I thought they were more biological and explained why I thought that. Then you asked what I was going on about, when all I did was answer your question.

@Dutchess_III No. I asked if you think they really have a steep learning curve, or if cultural norms just let them off the hook (i.e., there isn’t a steep learning curve, some just engage in certain behaviors because they know they can get away with it). Those are contrasting options. Furthermore, since @mazingerz88‘s comment was about learning to give sexual pleasure (not restraining themselves from rape), I was asking if you really think it’s hard for men to learn how to sexually please women, or if those who are bad at it are taking advantage of cultural norms that allow them to ignore female pleasure.

“Then you asked what I was going on about, when all I did was answer your question.”

I asked what you were on about because you didn’t answer my question at all. You answered some other question that I didn’t ask.

I think it is that hard to understand. Times have changed and there is a lot more information out there for kids who want it, but when I was a kid you couldn’t find a clitoris in any book of anatomy that was available to us. I didn’t know I had one until I was 13 and a girl friend told me about it, so I went looking. We had an anatomy book (one of the encyclopedias we had) at home, with the clear plastic overlays that built the body system by system and it wasn’t there. I even went to the library to research…nothing.
If I didn’t even know my own body or what it was capable of, how could any boy kid have a clue? They knew what it took to make themselves feel so great and that was all that mattered. I think many of them thought, and even many adult males still think, that’s all it takes for a woman, too, is just the basic sex act itself to give us satisfaction.

But, times are changing and that’s good.

So yeah. Without education it’s that hard to understand.

It is said that “God created man in his own image.” So God has a penis. (Just a fun point to ponder…)

That was a huge sticking point for me (ha ha!) If God was a male, he had a penis, right? And what did he use that penis for? It really offended Christians when I threw that out. They’d stammer and stutter and just tell me I was going to hell for talking “like that.”

A freakin’ paradox!

Messed up their time continuum! or something like that.

I think so. And I have no regrets.